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"Ehhmmm...", Ayane murmured in a disbelieving tone when the Elysian said that he did not have a clone of any sort. "I saw your personnel file...", she said under her breath. "Anywaaayyyy...my name is Ayane! Nice to meet you...umm...Arcturus! I like your wings!", she answered in a peppy tone before dipping back into her food.
Oh, alright, I'll see you around- Before Noboyuki even got to salute, the Elysian took off on wings of 'Oh-Empress-I-Am-Late-I-Am-Going-To-Die'... If that was even a thing, of course. He turned around, looking at the Mamushi fighter as he reflected on the.... Thought-talk?
She... Isn't what I really expected out of someone who is Chief Engineer. The last guy was older, saggier, grumpier, older... Oh. She might just be young. Maybe even as young as I am...? Noboyuki looked back at the scurrying Serphine, and shook his head. Naaaaaah. I don't think so, anyway. Man, Mom and Dad are right, it IS hard to tell anyone's age nowadays.
The lively Minkan moved over to the dormant and imposing Ginga bombers, having felt that he had seen enough of the multi-purpose fighter. Technicians were running all around him, getting the Imperator prepared for action. One day he will be in Serphine-shosa's place, the head tech-head of all tech-heads. Might not be this, maybe some other huge battleship or some small ship. He didn't know what the future had in store for him, but he was eager to just go to the future, where all the action, all the life, is!
He stopped by a bomber, and quietly admired, and also fought against making another squeal; these aircrafts lay waste to the planets surface beneath them, with an impressive firepower that the Mamushi can't match, they were used during Second Mishuvyai... Mishuvivia... Second Mishu War, basically. The Ginga's would lay waste to any ground installation, with no prejudice or fail. It could use some changes, obviously, though the optimistic staff member considers the lack of any new bombers to be a sign that the Gingas is just that good at its job.
... And then he remembered that the Mamushi can carry more bombs than this titan. He furrowed his brows, his face etched with puzzlement of comical proportions. That can't be right... How can a fighter carry more bombs than this? It's HUGE!
Akane and Aio were touring the hanger, looking at the fighters and bombers. The two of them quietly chatted with each other about what they saw. Akane noticed that Noboyuki was also looking at the fighters and bombers. Briefly consulting with her sister, the red Neko walked over to him. "Hey! I'm Akane." She said, perhaps a bit more loudly then was necessary.
"I'm Aoi." The Blue Neko beside Akane added quietly.
"We're new to the ship, so figured we might as well meet you." Akane continued excitedly.
Ume looked to the Elysian as he stood in front of her. She quietly blinked as she waited to be noticed. The KAMI would have most likely already informed him of what his superior looked like, and the CAG was just waiting for that gear to click. She decided to toy with him a moment and see if he knew who she was or not.
"So, do you know who you're reporting to orders from?"
Wardroom
Kaede lightly shook his head, "I've only just sat down, I got us some water as I didn't know if you would want something else. You've not missed a thing." The Taisa's smile was genuinely happy, Araena's presence seeming to lift his tired soul back awake. He leaned back into his chair for a moment, leaving one of his hands on the edge of the table.
"So, shall we peruse today's selection?"
Space
Far off at jump distance, two 'Sharie' battleships and six 'Super-Eikan' Heavy Cruisers came out of FTL in formation, being trailed by four large 'Nibasha' Freighters, presumably carrying stuff for the ships of the division that were still on the front.
A small communications line jumped from one of the Sharies to the Fortress, which then relayed the same message to the Imperator.
DIVISION THREE REINFORCEMENTS ARRIVED.
DEPART AS SOON AS DOCKED SHIPS ARE READY.
FIRST EXPEDITIONARY FLEET COMMAND.
It didn't seem like they were not going to be waiting much longer to begin departure. The YSS Saigō was still well under the readiness she would need to undock. It would be around three hours at best speed to get the most damaged ship out of the dock, and their orders were to wait until they were done.
"Why thank you, miss Ayane!" Arcturus turned to face his CAG. He opened his mouth, and a distinct, clear, loud, and perfectly identical voice called from behind the currently-distracted individuals, Arcturus himself mimicing the second speaker perfectly.
"Nito Hei Sargas, reporting to Taii Ume!" The synchronized voices were beheld by a surrounding salute, both twins becoming surprisingly crisp in stature. These two were going to be eternally frustrating, weren't they... But at least they did seem to recognize their authority figure. Sometimes.
Wardroom
Araena's delicate, calloused fingers gently slid towards the minkan's. "Let's!" She squeezed his hand lightly. "You still sound a bit tired. I hope the paperwork isn't drowning you, Kaede..." Her voiced cooed gently across the table, as the large ash-grey wings rustled behind her. One of the crimson feathers she possessed seems to have fallen free, briefly floating in sight before resting upon the floor next to the table. If Kaede was fast enough, he would have noticed it was somewhat worn-down; likely an old feather that was bound to fall off on its own, certainly more likely than if the woman started molting.
Able found himself rubbing his eyes under his shades, becoming increasingly exhausted with Ayane's constant peppiness. It was definitely getting to him. Not only was Able not really much for socializing, but she wasn't like most that kept to themselves, rather subdued in their approach. She was extroverted. Too much, almost. Where most saw it to be inviting and uplifting, Able saw it more as off-putting. Nothing that a bit of quality time around the neko couldn't cure, but still. As Ayane mentioned the man before them having a clone, he couldn't help but raise a brow in interest.
Able just locked his fingers together, eyes shifting between Ume and the Elysian. Not that anyone could tell where his gaze rested, thanks to his shades. She clearly was trying to test him... Or better yet, scare him out of his wits. Either way, it was interrupted by the appearance of another Elysian, this one bearing a striking resemblance to the first. "Mhm, mhm..." Able immediately said in understanding, turning to Ayane, as she was the one who had made the clone comments from before. "Miss Yamasaki, I believe you mistook identical twins for clones. If I had to make an estimated guess, I would say that is how these two describe one-another." He explained to her.
"BLAH!", the ever-so-easily startled Noboyuki yelped. He recoiled so strongly in the other direction that he almost, almost, fell over and cause more injury to himself. Although it is unknown if luck or instinct kicked in to save the klutz at the last moment.
The animated staff member gave the twins a solid salute as soon as he stopped flailing mindlessly with only one heel touching the ground. "Good to meet you, Akane-hei and Aoi-hei! I have to admit, it's great to see new faces here besides me... In a mirror..."
After an awkward pause, Noboyuki resumed talking like a somewhat normal Yamataian citizen. "Well, I came from a cargo ship, and I am trying to shoot for Chief Engineer someday, so I have been sightseeing all around the hangar! You know, get to know what kind of stuff that we got lying around! It makes me excited!" The batch-sisters can clearly see his excitement. Very clearly.
"Wait, you two seen the new Multi-Purpose aircraft, right?", he asked the two of them; he hoped they didn't get to see it yet, he can be like a tour guide for five minutes! Or ten! Really doesn't matter to him!
It never occurred to the Minkan that he forgot to introduce himself. In fact, it didn't even occur to him when he ran into the Shosa earlier that he forgot to introduce himself.
"Hai! We flew some of them in." Akane said excitedly. She loved her fighters, "We trained on them in flight school." Aio nodded in agreement to what Akane was saying. "We were coming over here to take a look at the bombers." Akane continued.
Akane was curious about him, "So your new here as well? What did you do before this?" Akane asked.
"Yep I am! I graduated from Officer School a while ago, great school, nice people!", Noboyuki responded. "After that, I worked as a officer-in-training aboard the YSS Wasabi; she was the cargo ship I worked on prior to this.", he elaborated further. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaand... Here I am!" The dork stretched his arms out, sort of gesturing to himself.
"I could just tell you two all about it! Man, those were some good years; I mean, granted I got bullied a lot, and the guys at the YSS Wasabi were grouchy and made some weird noises in the cabins, but they helped me get here in one way or another!" Noboyuki, if he had even the slightest feeling of depression in his body, he didn't express any of it as he spoke. He looked genuinely happy to share it, in fact!
"Now here I am! Shoi Noboyuki Kita, soon-to-be-Chief-Engineer, at your service!" The Minkan performed a quick bow before the two, having finally remembered to introduce himself for a change.
Not too long after that quick introduction, he asked, "Soooooooooo.... What was it like?! How was flying the new aircraft?"
As the couple talked, a waitress approached with the ordered waters, both tinkling quietly with clear cubes of ice within. As she set them down, the onyx-haired, cream-colored neko asked politely, "Would you like some more time to decide your order, or have you made a decision already?"
Kaede's partner replied politely, "We'll need another few moments, thank you." As the neko nodded happily and walked off to another table, Araena pulled up a menu, perusing her selections of the evening with her free hand.
There was a small selection of presumably easy Yamataian meals on the laminated menu. One side of the page was entirely sushi, the other a mishmash of seafood and traditional items.
Kaede quietly asked as he leaned over to pick up the fallen feather, "Anything sticking out to suit your fancy?"
As the woman thought over the menu, she blushed slightly as Kaede bent down-thank the light she wears long skirts, else this might have become an incredibly embarassing situation for the couple. With a little, humming chuckle, Serphine decided her entree as Kaede rightened himself, roughened feather in tow.
"I was thinking the steamed rice, for now. I'm in the mood for something a bit less vibrant after hearing the news about the new starfighters." The silver-haired woman smiled kindly and warmly to her partner. "So, what about you?"
Kaede nodded for a moment, "I'll just have the same. Though I have to ask, what about the fighters?" The Taisa seemed to brush the feather with his free hand's thumb before placing it on the table next to his water.
The woman's thoughts collected together for a few moments. "From what I have seen so far, they're quite impressive." She laced her fingers together, garnet-tinged eyes gently gliding around Kaede's face. "Quite a nice amount of flexibility in their design, and they have a good amount of firepower for their size. I'm quite excited to see them in combat; I'll also definately be looking over their design in a more in-depth way when I've the time." She smiled very, very lightly as her eyes drifted down to Kaede's hand and the feather it had held. "Found something interesting, I see?" Araena's words were somewhat playful, as if she would only give the information if Kaede asked the right way... Or maybe she was just being playful.
"Yeah, a beautiful feather from a beautiful Elysian. Interesting indeed." Kaede looked up and met her eyes, giving a similar emotion of playfulness.
Araena chuckled. "I'm not sure if I should be flattered or ask for a trip to the medbay!" Her chuckle evolved into a quiet laugh for a moment, before settling down. "Thank you, though..."
Seeing that the couple had set down their menus, the same black-haired girl approached. "What are we having this evening, Taisa and Shosa?" Araena responded fairly quickly,
"We'll have an order of the steamed rice for each of us, please." The waitress nodded happily as she collected the menus, turning and marching off to arrange this priority order.
Part of a series of mini-JPs between @HAMnJAM and myself, which shall take part in this thread.
Zanven was finally aboard his first ship since training. The YSS Imperator, a truly amazing sight to behold, and probably the most talked about ship that was just added to the first expeditionary fleet, his pilots uniform was neat and his walkthrough of the hanger unveiled a well of information which he began to calculate on his tablet while moving through the line. He had to admit, being brought on as a pilot instead of just a soldier was a surprise, but a welcome one. As he took a seat Near an empty section of the room with his tray of food he sighed, looking over his tablet as he studied his orders and bunking information. He was definetly in a different world, but that would not stop him from being the best...now he just had to put forth some effort.
"At least this beats the hell out of what they served me st basic..." he said as he began to eat, setting his tablet up to run some sample flight simulations and going over tactics used in dogfights.
The screen gave out a warning as a battlefield view of a space battle filled his view. Taking in a mouthful of food he would chew silently, eyes moving like guided lasers as he watched squadrons fighting in sync as if it was just another day.
"These pilots out here sure are something else..." he finished his bite with a hard swallow before taking a long drag from his glass of water.
Ume gave a look that silently said, 'Seriously?' before giving a mostly-there salute without standing, "Yeah if you could both not ever speak at the same time again, that'd be great. It gives me the heebie-jeebies." She lightly shuddered as if driving the point home with a ten ton hammer. Afterwards, she curled her head back over to Able and blankly stated,
"Well aren't you a big bundle of joy and emotion."
Wardroom
As the waitress left the two at their table, Kaede spoke up, "So, there is something that I need to speak with you about when you get the chance. We could reconvene for dinner at another point when our schedules allow, if that works."
Kaede lightly began to rub his thumb across the back of Araena's lightly and gracefully, smiling warmly.
"Hm? Alright, Kaede... I'll probably be busy for the next week or so, trying to learn more about the fighters and what the new additions to the fleet will have." She returned his smile pleasantly. "I'm guessing it's something quite important, then?" A little, happy sigh came to the man's ears. Her chest swelled slightly as she took a deep breath, squeezing Kaede's hand briefly.
"You could say that, yes. It's been on my desk in the form of paperwork but it is important. The entire ship will hear this and I want to make sure it's right."
Kaede gave a wink as he picked up his drink with his left hand and took a light sip.
Kaede's not-so-little angel chuckled, "Well, you've certainly had a lot of that. Paperwork, I mean." She smiled politely again as he took a sip, using the brief pause to think things over-No, he'd had a lot of papers to go over, too many to really narrow things down...
She cleared her throat. "Ah, well, I guess I'll know it when we get to it, right?" She opened her mouth a little in a short, happy laugh.
"Yup." He sat his drink back down next to the feather. Kaede laughed lightly as well before he took a small look around to see how everything was going.
The wardroom was fairly busy at this time-a fairly large "dinner rush" being the largest culprit for such crowding. Various officers, mostly nekos and minkans but even some other species such as Separa'shan, and even a Kodian officer were dining, usually chatting sociably; some were caught sending glances back to the captain and chief engineer who were together. There's not really a way to hide a relationship like this when the people involved are on a date in public. He did manage to spot their waittress as she approached, balancing two dishes with mounds of steaming, delicious rice on her arm professionally.
"Here you go, and, here you go..." Kaede's dish connected with the table first, followed by his partner's. "Is there anything else you'd like to order, Taisa and Shosa?"
Kaede looked to Araena as if telling her to make a response, to which she shook her head and said, "No, thank you."
As the waitress nodded and walked off, Kaede spoke again. "So, if you don't mind me asking, why are your feathers dotted in red?" His voice was soft and curious, making sure to not sound like he was meaning any offense.
Both twins laughed, thankfully not in sync with each other, as Arcturus sat down and Armin made his way over to sit next to him. Arc winked at Ayane, smiling at her and Able. "Told you I don't have a clone! This is old man Armin!"
"Oi, you shut up, it's only three minutes! Armin Sargas, at your service. I was trying to make sure this one didn't break our room apart and he took off without me!" Armin chuckled as he spoke.
Wardroom
The angel looked up from her meal for a moment, rubylike eyes focusing into Kaede's own. "Well, a bit of a long story, that one- do you know much about the Caelisolan Project, Kae?"
"Just that it is in between the Seraphs and the Patricians." Kaede picked up his chopsticks and lightly took a bit of rice from the top to gain the taste of it.
Serphine chuckled. "Plebians, Kae... Plebians." She took a momentary breath of respite. "Anyways, well, something funny-I volunteered back when it was still being developed. My wings were supposed to be all red like that feather-and my hair was originally brown. I'm not really up to scratch on what they meant when they tried to explain why I don't keep the colors, but apparently it was some sort of... Error, I guess?" She took a breath again, pausing as she did. "I kinda like the look, actually. Though for some reason the hemosynth we use medicinally always puts the colors back for a time."
"Well I think you look beautiful," He picked up the feather and held it out, "Whether you have colored feathers or not." He placed the feather back on the table and nodded to her food, "Now let's eat before it gets cold."
"Well, thank you, Kaede..." She chuckled again, squeezing the man's firm hand tightly once before letting go, adding a small mix of spices available on the table to her rice heap and mixing it in together before eating a mouthful of the delicious sustenance.
They both ate their bowls quietly. After they had both finished, Kaede took a light sip of water. He didn't say anything, just looked deep into Araena's eyes as if they were speaking wonderous things.
Arna hiccuped lightly, a brief flush of embarassment rushing through her face before she took a deep breath or three to try and settle herself. Got a bit too zealous eating... She followed through with an audiable chuckle. "Sorry about that."
Kaede gave a slight grin, "You're adorable."
As the waittress collected the couple's plates, Serphine took a brief look around. It seems many of the other officers had cleared out, finished with their own meals. "It's gotten pretty quiet in here, hasn't it?"
After she spoke about the near silence, Kaede looked around as he began to notice as well. "Huh, guess it has."
She smiled for a moment, politely. "Well, if you're finished with dinner, perhaps we could go somewhere to relax then?"
Kaede looked back over to Araena, smiled, and nodded, "Let's go." He stood up, walking over to her chair and extended his hand to her.
She raised herself up with his assistance, responding with a "Why, thank you, Kae!" Following the Taisa out of the wardroom, Araena sneakily reached to keep hold of his hand as she caught up.
Akane and Aoi giggled, "It's fun, we both are good at it," Akane said, then realized she didn't know how to describe the sensation to someone who had never been flying. "Have you ever been flying?" She asked.